NYT: Is Low Testosterone Hurting Your Libido? Or Are You Just Aging?

[xqfq]

Another biased and negative article about male HRT in the NYT:

Is Low Testosterone Hurting Your Libido? Or Are You Just Aging?

Zero positives listed, zero interviews or quotes from men who’s lives were improved, and a whole section on a guy who got a stroke. You’d think testosterone was downright bad reading this stuff.

Before I was on HRT I was sleeping 14 hours a day and could barely work, I was depressed and anxious constantly and I had to take cialis and modafinil to function. Why don’t they interview people like me?

In articles about female birth control there’s not a whole section about how it carries a potential increased stroke risk.

Articles like this really anger me because they make good physicians even more reluctant to prescribe to men who would benefit.

 

[Cataceous]

I share your frustration. For me, TRT restored the quality of life that hypogonadism had taken away. Yet the media doesn't feature these very positive stories. Reality takes a back seat when there's a war on masculinity to be won.

 

[Mountain Man]

I actually like to see these dumb and poorly researched articles. Lower demand means lower cost for those of us who know the benefits of HRT.

 

[Systemlord]

TRT is low cost, low profit and effective at treating and preventing disease, no wonder they are those entities trying to attacking it, it hurts the bottom line and taking medicine in a new direction and some are not happy about it.

All those cardiovascular and heart medicines that will not be necessary in the foreseeable future.

 

[TLR]

You lost me at NYT

 

[JimGainz]

I swear this is a conspiracy against men trying to do the right thing and get hormones under control. I still have GPs preaching that I’m risking cardiac failure by being on TRT (meanwhile my cardiologist was the one who originally put me on TRT because he sees that it lowers cardiac risk and improves a wide array of other symptoms as we all know.).

 

[Montrealer]

Another biased and negative article about male HRT in the NYT:

Is Low Testosterone Hurting Your Libido? Or Are You Just Aging?

Zero positives listed, zero interviews or quotes from men who’s lives were improved, and a whole section on a guy who got a stroke.

I wouldn't expect anything different from the Fake News NYT

 

[Neil]

Look...I just Googled the "author" of this B.S. piece in the birdcage rag NYT...he's one of those journalism degreed for hire people, he does not work at the Times, as the NYT is essentially bankrupt and have laid off most of the staff long ago. He writes for whoever is paying this week, the list is long. He took a semester of persuasive argumentation and next week he will probably write a piece on the magic of bioidentical hormones or how to pressure wash your deck, that probably will have just as many half-truths and exaggerations as this nonsense smear drivel article above.

But the fact is conventional allopathic medicine regards low hormones, bone loss, loss of muscle mass, increasing frequency of disease, and death, all acceptable as "well, you are getting older". I had one HMO doctor actually tell me those exact words when I was 47. That was my last visit with her.

Don't settle. If your doctor is like this fire him or her. Find someone else. In the last ten years, I've fired (meaning I never go back) a cardiologist, three electrophysiologists, one dentist, and two HMO doctors. Now I have a world-class electrophysiologist, a great dentist, and a D.O. doctor that is fine so far.

 

[Marco N Cognito]

Look...I just Googled the "author" of this B.S. piece in the birdcage rag NYT...he's one of those journalism degreed for hire people, he does not work at the Times, as the NYT is essentially bankrupt and have laid off most of the staff long ago. He writes for whoever is paying this week, the list is long. He took a semester of persuasive argumentation and next week he will probably write a piece on the magic of bioidentical hormones, that probably has just as many half-truths and exaggerations at this none sense smear drivel.

But fact is conventional allopathic medicine regards low hormones, bone loss, loss of muscle mass, increasing frequency of disease, and death, all acceptable as "well, you are getting older". I had one HMO doctor actually tell me those exact words when I was 47. That was my last visit with her.

Don't settle. If your doctor is like this fire him or her. Find someone else. In the last ten years, I've fired ( meaning I never go back) a cardiologist, three electrophysiologists, one dentist, and two HMO doctors. Now I have a world-class electrophysiologist, a great dentist, and a D.O. doctor that is fine so far.

Agreed!

Out of curiosity, who's your EP and do you have an arrhythmia?

 

[Neil]

Hi Marco,

I had nine years of progressively worsening atrial fibrillation, the last three years were 24/7/365. I saw the best and the brightest EP's in the greater Los Angeles area, they basically gave me about 10% or less chance of a successful ablation odds since I was in long-standing full-time a-fib. Then I read about Dr. Andrea Natale. He's in the Founder's Circle of the Heart Rhythm Society, holds patents, written or co-written hundreds of journal articles, and done over 20,000 cardiac ablations, including the first RF ablation in North America. He does not do pacemakers or other tests that EP's do, he only does ablations. He's in Austin, Texas. I went to see him, most of his patients travel to see him, as he takes the failures others give up on. That was in December 2013, and I've been perfect since!! One and done! He's years ahead of anyone else, and he has the touch. Andrea Natale - Wikipedia

 

[Marco N Cognito]

Hi Marco,

I had nine years of progressively worsening atrial fibrillation, the last three years were 24/7/365. I saw the best and the brightest EP's in the greater Los Angeles area, they basically gave me about 10% or less chance of a successful ablation odds since I was in long-standing full-time a-fib. Then I read about Dr. Andrea Natale. He's in the Founder's Circle of the Heart Rhythm Society, holds patents, written or co-written hundreds of journal articles, and done over 20,000 cardiac ablations, including the first RF ablation in North America. He does not do pacemakers or other tests that EP's do, he only does ablations. He's in Austin, Texas. I went to see him, most of his patients travel to see him, as he takes the failures others give up on. That was in December 2013, and I've been perfect since!! One and done! He's years ahead of anyone else, and he has the touch. Andrea Natale - Wikipedia

Itr is great to hear of a successful RFCA procedure. Congrats. Only reason I asked is that most folks don't see an EP unless they have a rhythm disorder of some kind. As an aside, my father (90) has AF but has been told RFCA is contraindicated due to his advanced age and the risks associated with the procedure (e.g. anesthesia used may induce dementia). It would be interesting to see if Dr. Natale would concur or have an alternative opinion on this.

I, myself, have been getting my share of increased PVC burden, but am structurally sound, CV-wise, just some mild-moderate MVP and MR; EF is 55+. RFCA is offered to those with a heavy PVC burden that are symptomatic and have failed drug therapy (i.e. CCBs, anti-arrhythmics, beta blockers). Since I am uncertain of the trigger and my EP advised there is no indication to warrant RFCA at this time, I am holding off and using the usual mix of antihypertensive meds + my cardiac cocktail (magnesium, arginine, citrulline, d-ribose, coq10, carnitine, etc.).

I'm assuming you already ran through the first-line drug therapy (i.e. metoprolol) as well as tried magnesium infusions (most AF pts are deficient in Mg).

Are you taking any meds/supplements post-op for maintenance now (everyone should take magnesium since there's no way to get enough from diet these days)? TRT or any other HRT? And if so, do you notice further cardiac improvement from the TRT/HRT?

 

[Neil]

Marco, You have to try this, it's homemade magnesium bicarbonate water. This stuff stops PVC's Magnesium Water: Updated recipe | Dr. William Davis

Not sure why and how it's better exactly? Watch this video, Dr. Davis goes over all the types of magnesium and covers the magnesium bicarbonate water (the best magnesium supplement you can't buy).

If you would like to know even more...

http://www.afibbers.org/Wallerwater.pdf

Find the seltzer water locally, but it's hard to find a brand of MOM that doesn't have bleach as an ingredient! Here is one, I just order it here. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000V9N5UW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[xqfq]

Marco, You have to try this, it's homemade magnesium bicarbonate water. This stuff stops PVC's Magnesium Water: Updated recipe | Dr. William Davis

Not sure why and how it's better exactly? Watch this video, Dr. Davis goes over all the types of magnesium and covers the magnesium bicarbonate water (the best magnesium supplement you can't buy).

If you would like to know even more...

http://www.afibbers.org/Wallerwater.pdf

Find the seltzer water locally, but it's hard to find a brand of MOM that doesn't have bleach as an ingredient! Here is one, I just order it here. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000V9N5UW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'd love it if you guys who have Afib that started /after/ TRT would check out my comment here:

Heart Palpitations on TRT? The cause?

 

[MikeXL]

I don’t read the popular press anymore. All BS

 

[xqfq]

(I've deleted my comment as discussion has gotten off topic)

 

[DragonBits]

Another biased and negative article about male HRT in the NYT:

Is Low Testosterone Hurting Your Libido? Or Are You Just Aging?

Zero positives listed, zero interviews or quotes from men who’s lives were improved, and a whole section on a guy who got a stroke. You’d think testosterone was downright bad reading this stuff.

Before I was on HRT I was sleeping 14 hours a day and could barely work, I was depressed and anxious constantly and I had to take cialis and modafinil to function. Why don’t they interview people like me?

In articles about female birth control there’s not a whole section about how it carries a potential increased stroke risk.

Articles like this really anger me because they make good physicians even more reluctant to prescribe to men who would benefit.

I didn't think the article was all that negative. The title was the most negative aspect. They don't make me angry, just curious how they arrive at their conclusion which for many of us is so different from our reality.

1/2 the article focused on supplements and how they aren't effective at raising testosterone, which most of us agree with.

Partly they look at many younger men that go on testosterone either because they feel their T is low or they want better results in the gym. Hard to tell from the article whether these younger men have low T or not.

The person they focused on, Bill, suffered a major stroke while on TRT at age 63. He gave up TRT after the stoke, but at age 71 his urologist advised him there was not a link between the treatment and his stroke, so he went back on.

I can see why testosterone can be controversial, it can and often used in perfectly normal men to enhanced bodybuilding activities, win in sports, etc. Not many drugs are like that, no one really wants to take most drugs with a medical reason.

To me the biggest problem with the medical establishment and TRT is they set the standard of low T to be below 264, and they do so in a very low tech way, just by testing a lot of men and arriving at what those men have. By that standard, obesity now and diabetes soon should be considered normal.

As things currently stand with TRT, it's OK by me. If they moved to make testosterone more like heroin, that would cause me big problems. On the other side, if my local PCP would prescribe testosterone, it would make it cheaper, but likely I wouldn't agree on the protocol.

I don't feel like I need to agree with doctors nor do I feel like I need to find a doctor that agrees with me, I can usually find a compromise that lets me do as I want. Certainly I take all professional opinions seriously, but not blindly.